


Dance of the Moon and Sun

by bluestockng



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Angst, Courtly Love, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, What could've been, soul mates, who needs historical authenticity when you could wreck your emotions instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 11:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10662084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestockng/pseuds/bluestockng
Summary: When she hears of Lord M's illness, Victoria rushes to his side, but the old feelings come flooding back...





	Dance of the Moon and Sun

Pleasurably ensconced in her drawing room at Buck House, Victoria sat amongst her ladies, laughing and gossiping. Propping her feet up on a chintz chair, Victoria settled back to pour over her leather-bound copy of _The Bride of Lammermoore_. Smiling to herself, she knew that what her husband lacked in obvious charm, he quite made up for in obvious heart. Now that she had comfortably stepped into her role of Queen, she allowed herself these enjoyable hours in good company with the fine novels she had been denied for so long. Always, it seemed, Albert had a new book for her gathered from his travels about town.

Movement outside the door broke her reverie as a servant slipped Lady Portman a wax-sealed letter. Unusual, perhaps, but of no concern to the queen. Victoria returned to her novel and the vaulting hills of Scotland’s moors.

“Your majesty, there is a message from Brocket Hall.” 

Victoria sometimes wondered whether Emma Portman, graceful and stately, might have loved Lord Melbourne in her younger years. Certainly, a love affair was not entirely out of the question; Lord M had his share of misfortunes in love as a younger man. Might Emma Portman have been another? But then, Lady Portman always encouraged them when they were together. She had told Victoria about the orchids and the glasshouses of Brocket Hall. Perhaps that was the effect of Lord M; most fell at least a little in love with his kindness and his charm. 

“How odd. Lord Melbourne usually writes to me directly. He knows you are so often in my company, Emma.”

In truth, his letters had become less frequent. She stopped writing her own some time ago at Albert’s insistence; Lord M’s letter was a welcome respite from the drought. Taking the message with obvious haste, she poured over the writing. Lady Portman, already privy to its contents, watched silently as Victoria’ face crumpled and her eyes gleamed wet.

“Lord Melbourne is very ill.”

She forced herself to recite the words coldly, hoping to betray no emotion. Victoria smoothed the pleats of her blue silk gown, merely a front to keep her hands from trembling. Failing that, she handed thought of their daily rides on the green and in the woods; their carefree banter and his elegant horsemanship. She had watched him practically vault off his mount on many occasions, but now, it seemed, his vaulting days were over. Victoria did not realize how badly she trembled until Lady Portman placed a careful hand on her shoulder.

“What can I do?”

“I think I should like to ride for Brocket Hall, Emma. May I take your carriage?”

Lezhen rose from her seat and set aside her sewing, looking concerned.

“Majesty, is that wise? Think of the Princess Royal and Bertie.”

Lezhen left the rest unspoken: it had been nearly eight weeks since Victoria’s regular monthly courses. Mercifully, she would have a few more months of peace before her body began to grow and the nausea overwhelmed her. 

“They have their father and their nurses. I’ll be back before nightfall. If Albert asks, I have gone riding.”

“Majesty!” Lezhen warned, the ladies looked away.

“Lord Melbourne never left my side until propriety demanded it. How could I forsake him now?”

Feeling the warmth creeping into her cheeks, she turned on her heel with a rustle of silk skirt and left her ladies. Curling up in a corner of Lady Portman’s carriage, she tried to distract herself from the impending meeting with Lord Melbourne by thinking of her children. Victoria knew that there were some in her court who disapproved of her relationship to her children. As much as she loved Vicky and Bertie, there were times when she found motherhood—even in the brief moments when she could step away from her duties to mother—tiresome and difficult. Making them was good fun, watching them as infants romp and squeal was fine, but a shadow hung in the unspoken space between. It helped sometimes to be away from it; to his credit, Albert happily took on the duty of parenthood.

 

Brocket Hall was as she last saw it; serene, quiet, far removed from the bustle and commotion of London proper. Leaves in the hues of autumn littered the ground and a light mist hung in the air. Pulling her brocade shawl tighter about her shoulders, Victoria knocked on the stately door. With a little luck, the butler Hedges would not remember her past clandestine and faithful journey to Brocket Hall.  
The portly little man, only a few inches taller than she, opened the door and beckoned her inside, recognizing her at once. A deathly hush hung around the place, a morbid memento mori. Inside, only a few candles had been lit and the windows shuttered and curtained. She tiptoed up the stairs behind the butler who held a candelabra aloft, lighting the halls. He left her at the door without announcing her presence, a welcome miracle; Victoria loitered outside the bedroom for a few moments, hoping to draw courage for the man who was so close. Finally, she entered without knocking. 

Propped up against a prodigious quantity of feather pillows, Lord M looked up at her over his newspaper, an almost humorous mixture of shock and disbelief on his weathered face. When he dropped the paper, she noticed the worn texture and weave of his robe sleeves, the faded quilt upon the bed, the sun drearily peeking through a window curtained in heavy folds of dark cloth, providing barely enough light for his reading. But that was Lord M, whether a newspaper or St. Chrysostom, he kept reading even when he needed rest.

“My dear Leicester.”

“My dear Elizabeth.”

His lovely green eyes peered out at her, but she noticed a change there: they were heavily shadowed in their sockets, framed by new wrinkles since last they'd met. His hair, once only streaked with age, had turned nearly grey. He tried to smile for her, but his pale colour betrayed his ailment. The vitality that had at once attracted and enraptured her had been wrung out by illness and that fickle mistress: time. Clearly, her dear Lord M aged a decade in the intervening months. 

Feeling the prickle of tears in her eyes, Victoria should have tried to make herself more regal. She should want to make him proud—let him see the woman he’d moulded. Instead, she could only sit and watch him, feeling once more like the small child of eighteen who had taken his strength when he offered it. If only she could give him back that fortitude. In spite of his weariness, Lord M struggled to sit up higher against the pillows. He even wore that old familiar expression where his brow knitted and he frowned a little as he waited patiently to hear her most recent blunder so he could assuaged her fears and put her heart at ease with a quip or a compliment. Fresh tears threatened to fall; she twisted her hands in her lap to keep from reaching for his hand.

_Queens do not chase after their Prime Ministers_

But, he was not her Prime Minister anymore. He was just a half-forgotten, dear friend upon whom she called for the sake of the old times they had shared. A terrible lie; he had been the dearest friend, the sole companion. _The Soul companion._ Her first great love, her father, her conscious, and her confidant. 

“What is it, Ma’am?”

She heard it now: the tender, gentle encouragement to speak her mind, to let go of her fears, to tell him anything. His quiet patience reminded her of another afternoon, when she had arrived at Brocket Hall incognito to confess her love and propose. Years had passed since that day, a lifetime separated her from the child she had once been with the woman she became. The products of passing time separated those lives: births, deaths, politics, children. Still, she clearly pictured him, captured for a moment by memory: the wiry green wool of his coat, her small hand clasped in his, the sting of rejection, the calling of the rooks on the wind. 

“Lady Portman received a message from you,” Victoria could not keep the waver out of her voice and she still had not met his gaze, “She showed me the missive and I came at once in her carriage.”

Victoria peered at him, searching for the answers he might not volunteer: why had he not dictated a letter to her directly? If he had dictated the message to a servant, why not have it directly to the Queen? 

“In your message, you requested that Lady Portman keep your condition a secret.” 

“I did not wish to worry you, Ma’am. You have more important matters to attend than your old Prime Minister.”

“You’re not old, Lord M.”

He chuckled and shifted beneath the blankets, no doubt reminded of a time when he was happier, healthier, and could lead her effortlessly around the dance floor.

“I think my physician would tend to disagree with you, Ma’am.”

Unbeknownst to Victoria, her presence breathed life back into his battered heart. He had guarded that heart carefully for many years after Caro left and then again after she died. But, like water wearing fractures into the strongest rock, she stubbornly returned to force her way through his isolation and his cynicism.

“I have missed you.”

It was a small thing to offer him; a natural thing to say, an impulse, but one shaded with melancholy. It shamed her to know that sometimes days passed without her thinking of him. When he was her Prime Minister, she had missed him after a few hours without his presence. A day or two apart dragged by like an eternity. Since he had retired, however, somehow she had learned to live with the missing and the ache. She had found new pleasures and sorrows to fill the emptiness.

“I would think, with royal business and your children, that you might not have the time to miss me.” 

“How could you say that?”

But then she caught herself; his eyes danced mischievously, the corners of his lips twitched into a smile. Even so, she could see him visibly tiring from their conversation even as he put on a brave face.  
Now, she watched the man who had taught her to rule and who had taught her to love lying weak and fragile. It was hard to reconcile him with the Lord M she had loved; her Lord M refused to use a cane and tended his gardens himself. The new Lord M, however, was no less brilliant or witty. His commentary spun her head around; his opinions were ravishing. She always found herself scooting ever closer, excited to hear the next witticism.

They had rescued each other from their mutual loneliness, and he had kindled a passion for life within her that could only be called romantic. She wanted to return the favor and coax him back to health and good spirits. 

“I can command armies if I desire. I bent the Tories to my will over a few ladies in waiting. I can bring Robert Peele to heel. What use is it being Queen if I cannot command you to be well?”

“Well, I shall do my best to please you all the same.”

A smile crept upon her lips. She had missed this: his urbane charm and quick humor. Victoria thought that even now, he could melt the coldest heart. No one, not even Albert, could make her face light up like her Lord M. 

“How are your children, Ma’am? Is Vicky sleeping through the night now?”

She wondered if it pained him to inquire after her issue. Surely, their names must be a prickly reminder of what they had lost? Looking at him, however, his countenance looked as casual and comfortable as if he had commented upon the weather.

“I had forgotten how well Vicky took to you, Lord M. She is sleeping soundly, or so Albert tells me.”

“And how is Prince Albert?” Lord M asked dutifully, keeping his eyes steady on her face. He had always been so much harder to read. Clearly, his skills as a politician had not diminished with time.

“He has made me a suitable husband, I think…but there are moments.”

“Moments, Ma’am?”

“Moments when he’s…prickly with me.”

“Well, even the most beautiful roses possess thorns, Ma’am.”

“Orchids don’t have thorns.”

Victoria could no longer pretend to be a naïve girl who did not realize she was flirting when she drunkenly fell into Lord M’s arms at the coronation ball, however, marriage and motherhood had not robbed her entirely of her impetuousness. She would let herself flirt shamelessly if it brought a smile to his face. Without thinking, she reached out her hand and placed it upon his own. He startled a little and looked into her eyes carefully, warning himself as much as her to be careful. 

 

In the late evening, Victoria sat at her vanity table, staring into her reflection in the mirror. For the first time many months, she felt herself thinking of Lord M again. Strolling to her bookshelf, she searched for her tome of Tennyson poetry. Running her fingers across cracked spines, she found the copy where she had left it all that time ago. Flipping hastily through pages, Victoria found a brittle, pressed orchid between the pages of _The Lady of Shallot_. Gently, she placed it in her jewelry box next to her mirror, tucking it under a layer of soft, purple velvet.

Victoria remembered the frequent delivery of the loveliest flowers from Lord M’s glasshouses. Blushing, she recalled the coy way she had pinned the orchids and gardenias to the front lace fringe of her ball gown, hoping to capture Lord M’s attention like a shy lover. At that moment, Skerrett pushed open her bedroom door and entered, ruddy faced, but grinning.

“Majesty, would you like help taking down your hair?”

Nodding, Victoria beckoned her. Fortunate that Skerrett appeared: Victoria didn’t turn herself alone with her emotions at the moment. Skerrett’s fingers moved quickly and impeccably, pulling out pins and smoothing curls expertly until the Queen’s hair fell pretty and loose around her shoulders. 

She thought of other hands, hands which had helped her with her portrait when she had faltered in front of the entire court. Taken by sudden giddiness, Victoria pressed the pearl hairpins into Skerrett’s hands.

“You should take these, Skerrett.”

“I couldn’t. You already gifted me handkerchiefs, I can’t take these too.”

“Nonsense, they’re yours. Perhaps you could wear them down in the kitchens for that handsome Mr. Francatelli?”

Skerrett blushed red but gingerly took the pins all the same.

“I think he would like them.”

In a fit of fancy unbefitting a queen, Victoria jumped up and took Skerrett by the hands and swung her around the room. In that moment, they could have been two ordinary girls, sharing a mischievous secret. But just as quickly as it came, the moment disappeared when Skerrett reminded her she must return to her work downstairs.

A few moments later, Albert joined her. Hoping to push thoughts of Lord Melbourne from her mind, she joined him in their bed. 

“Did you have a nice ride today?" 

“I did, yes. Most pleasant. I think I should do so more often, it brings me so much comfort.”

Albert reached for her and kissed the crown of head. In spite of their frequent spats and his inexplicable love of trains, she loved Albert. He brought her comfort and pleasure and companionship. When they had wed, however, she had pictured a different man with her at the altar. She shivered a little at the thought, knowing that she should not lie to Albert about Lord Melbourne. Albert, thinking her cold, wrapped his arms around her and settled her against his chest. 

At first, their mutual passion—a passion, she suspected, which might have been misplaced from another source—carried them through the engagement and their early wedded days. She’d mistaken it for love, bit it had been her duty. Love, the true enduring love, came later to them. It crept in quietly during those wee hours before dawn when they whispered back in forth, tangled together in bed, unbothered by the outside world. 

She would tell him. She must tell him, but for tonight, she would allow herself the indulgence of a small secret. 

 

The next day, while Albert went out with friends and before her dispatch boxes had been inspected and signed, Victoria found herself on the stairway of Brocket Hall. For a brief moment, she felt the sharp pang of guilt in her stomach. Ignoring this, she joined Lord Melbourne once more in his stuffy bedroom. This time, she had fetched him a basket of sweets from the kitchens. The other ladies contributed as well, packing the basket high with peaches and good wishes. Pulling away the cloth, she set the basket upon his lap.

“Mr. Francatelli was very generous with me after I told him who they were for. You are sorely missed at the palace, Lord M.” 

He took a sweetmeat pie, but he seemed troubled.

“You’ve told Mr. Francatelli, but have you told Albert?”

His eyes met hers, but he already knew the truth as surely as he knew her.

“I’ll tell him tonight.”

She could never hide the truth from him just as he would never willingly hide it from her. Victoria knew how easily he could read her, like a book of Tennyson. Victoria wondered if that why was he found her disarming, why he always could trust her. She knew that the women with whom he acquainted himself were neither coy nor innocent, they were women of the court, politician’s wives who played the game as well as their husbands, women like Lady Portman. He had taught her some of the strategy, but no matter what, she would always retain some of the blithe joy of her youth. 

Before she’d married Albert, she had worried that he might take a mistress. Instead of encouraging her fears for his own gain, Lord Melbourne has told her that Albert was a man of true feeling. Even when the truth destroyed him, he told her. It was part of why she had loved him: Lord M never hid the truth from her. When she had questions, even those of a delicate nature, he answered her honestly and with a frankness that might have startled anyone else. 

“Do all men have mistresses, Lord M? Am I the only person in the world who did realize that my uncles and father and everyone else in my family keeps women?” She had asked him whilst wringing her hands and pacing, suddenly afraid of the reality from which she had been sheltered.

“Not all of us take mistresses, Ma’am. But many do.”

Ruefully, she had turned to him.

“Forgive me, Lord M. I would never throw you in with other men. I know you’re a rook.”

There were a thousand conversations she wished to relive. Instead, she was given a second chance to comfort him and keep him company like this. 

“I would quite like to keep visiting you, Lord M. The trouble is, I am quite busy most days.”

“I would never have you neglect your sovereign duties on my account, Ma’am. Though I think—I hope—my company is rather more agreeable than Sir Robert Peele’s.”

“Immensely more, Lord M. He’s suitable enough as a Prime Minister, but as a friend, well…he’s not you.”

She raised her bright blue eyes to his. 

“Which is why, I was hoping to arrange something of a letter schedule with you. I am rather ashamed to admit that our correspondence has fallen away. My fault, I think.” 

“I have missed them.” he admitted with a soft smile.

“I know that as a married woman I perhaps should not write you so often as I would like. But still, will you begin writing me? If would be rude of me to ignore your letters, after all, and if I happened to respond I would simply be doing by duty as queen.”

“No more than one letter a week, Ma’am.”

“Only on? Lord M! Whatever will I do without your guidance and counsel? No, Lord M, it must be twice a week or not at all.”

He paused for a moment, before speaking with his usual sardonic expression.

“Three times it is then. It’s settled.”

Even with the illness that sapped his strength, he had not entirely lost his debonair flair and epigrammatic wit. She thought her heart might leap out of her chest, until he began to cough roughly. The sound clawed at her insides, reminding her that he was gravely ill.

“Excuse me, Ma’am.”

She handed him a glass of water from off the bedside table, briefly letting her fingers caress his. After a few sips, his coughing subsided enough for him to speak. 

“I confess I wrote less frequently as well, Ma’am. I hope you did not take it as a sign indicating lack of devotion to our conversations.”

“No one could ever see you with me and doubt your devotion, Lord M.”

Lord M studied her face; Victoria wondered if he was cross with her for her unabashed response. When he spoke, she nearly had to lean in close to hear his words. 

“Nor yours, Ma’am.”

Hoping to postpone her tears, Victoria moved closer to him. She knew it was wrong and improper and scandalous, but she climbed into bed beside him and laid her head against his chest. Slowly, she felt his arm find her waist and tuck around it. They stayed like that for some hours, drifting between sleep and wakefulness, drifting between reality and dreams. When Hedges peaked through the door and saw them, he left without a word. There were some things in the world that did not need explaining. Eventually, crimson sun peaked through the window, warning of the encroaching evening. 

“You’ll need to away, Ma’am.”

He reminded her tenderly so as not to break her heart: she had a husband, children, and a country to govern. He could not be anything for her anymore. Taking his hand in hers, she kissed it as he had done a thousand times before.

 

That night when she returned to Buck House, she found Albert sitting upon their bed, pouring over his reports on the condition of the poor. Half undressed with his shirt hanging open, she marveled a little at the sight of him. How could she tell him she had spent the afternoon in the arms of another man?

Without looking up, he continued his nonchalant reading. 

“Albert, I am home. Will you not greet your wife?”

Setting aside his work, he strode towards her and took her into his arms before kissing her soundly. She felt the amorous ardor growing, but decided to ignore it for now. It might be smarter to take him to bed first to smooth problems over before they began, but she would feel dreadful about it. For better or worse, Albert provided her with the avenue she required. 

“A footman delivered orchids and gardenias while you were out. Do you know who might have sent them?”

Sighing, she replied tersely. 

“They’re from Brocket Hall, I visited today.”

Immediately, she regretted not seducing him beforehand. The room felt as if all the air had rushed out through the open window, leaving her sputtering and choking in the pregnant silence. She trembled as she waited for his temper to catch flame. He ran a hand over his face, looking more exhausted than she had ever seen him

“You went to him? The man who played you like a pawn in a game of chess for his own ends!” 

Albert wielded his words like a dagger, wounding her heart and her pride. Why could he not understand? Why must he hate the man who had given her so much? Why did everyone assume their friendship had been wrong or impure? It hurt her to think that most people misinterpreted Lord Melbourne. 

“He never! At any rate, what of Uncle Leopold, constantly needling and manipulating you: trying to get you into my bed!” 

Victoria wanted to rage and storm and defend Lord Melbourne’s legacy. A more honorable man had never lived, she wanted to say. But Albert, lost in his anger and jealousy, would choose not to see that. Still, she knew that she had been wrong to visit without telling him. Her thoughts came in a jumble, incoherent and pained.

“You were always too intimate with him. I saw the way he looked at you. If you loved him so much, why didn’t you marry your beloved Melbourne instead?”

She wanted to shout to the heavens: “I tried!” She wanted to shake him and make him see, but she knew Albert’s pride and she loved him and she wouldn’t hurt him worse than she had already. 

“Always you put him first. Before me. Before the children!”

“You’ve always been jealous of him. Even now, when he is old and near death you cannot accept that I loved him first.”

Albert looked as though she had struck him with the fireplace poker. Surely, he had known all along the depth of her affection for the Prime Minister? 

“I asked you to abandon your attachment to him.”

“And I did. Ever since we married I have separated myself from him, at great emotional expense to myself.”

“But now you return to him? You agreed to obey me!”

“How dare you? How dare you demand that I disobey my heart! Just because I care for him does not mean that I care for you or our family any less.”

Her eyes beseeched him. He must know that she meant the words; that she loved him and always would. If he understood or cared, he did not show it. Albert grabbed his robe from a chair and swiftly made for the door. 

“He’s _dying_ , Albert!”

The strangled, tortured note in her voice and the vehemence of her tone shocked her. Until now, she had tried to lie to herself with each visit, but she could see the truth plainly. At the admission, she hugged her harms close around her body. She heard the patter of raindrops on the roof; she thought to close the window, but she could not move from her spot. 

“I will not abandon him now.”

Albert stopped, his hand on the doorknob. The shade of some unknown emotion—pity?—settled in his eyes. 

“Please don’t ask me to.” 

Victoria’s tears fell free now, splashing onto the floor beneath her feet. Albert, despite his feeling of betrayal, could not let his wife suffer alone. Guiding her gently, he set her down upon the bed and let her rest her head against his shoulder.

“I love you, Albert. I will love you until the day that I die. I ask only for your trust that I love you…” She took his hand and placed it upon her stomach, “and our children.”

A true, joyous smile broke over Albert’s face, all thoughts of Lord Melbourne erased.

 

Threading her small arm through Melbourne’s, Victoria led him to the oak trees of Brocket Hall. It had taken all of her encouragement to force him from the bed, but she could tell that he missed his walks and the open air. Even before she could see them, she heard the rooks calling from afar, beckoning them closer. Lord M leaned heavily upon her, his strength wasting away with each step. She sensed that he needed her strength more than he let on, but he seemed determine not to burden her. Together, in the crisp October air, they sat by the statue side by side, sharing the weight of all that should have been.

Through her gloves, she felt the light touch of his fingers upon hers. She faced away from him, looking out to the hedges, pretending that she could not feel the red-hot burning of his gaze upon her. Its intensity always enthralled her: it reminded her of the costume ball where he had dressed as her Leicester. Such a small gesture, but one borne of love and the deepest affection. His eyes had travelled the length of her then, too, coming to rest on the orchids she had pinned to the bosom of her costume. When she had met his eyes, she saw what she now recognized as the heat of desire. Victoria, without having the proper words for her feelings, had wanted to take him far away; she had wanted him to lead her by the hand to her bedchamber where they could be alone. But now when she met his eyes, she saw sorrow mixed with the passion and she was reminded of the treacherous chasm between their hearts. When he died—if he died—she feared that she would never be able to face that emptiness within her soul again.

“Lord M. You told me once that I gave your life meaning again after the loss of your son…I am afraid that when you left me that you lost that meaning. The illness that has befallen you, this is my fault, I fear.”

"As long as you are happy, Ma'am, I can assure you that my life has meaning."

Victoria sniffed and moved her body closer, hoping that by sharing his space that she might anchor him to the world and to her side. The memories of their last fateful meeting under the trees hung heavy upon the chilly breeze, quietly reminding them that time could not repeated and some mistakes could not be fixed. 

“Lord M, I love my husband, my children, my country, my people…there is space to love a great many things.”

She hoped that he understood her meaning. Victoria sense the vulnerability in his eyes and in the touch of his hand upon hers. Lord M held onto her hand so gently, as if their bond was tenuous he feared it might snap in the wind. It spoke to his desire to hold her as a man loved a woman. It spoke to the loneliness they shouldered together, it spoke to the mourning of an impossible love. In those illusory, transcendent moments, Victoria pictured herself as the Lady of the Brocket Hall, not the Queen. His voice finally broke through the emptiness. 

“Ma’am, you know you cannot visit me again.”

She had always known it: continuing down this path could only bring them pain with the pleasure. Watching him slip away would destroy her, and he always wanted to protect her. Before they parted for perhaps the final time, he cradled her in his arms, holding her with all the strength that he could muster. His eyes stayed on her face and on her small mouth, but he made no move to kiss her. Her honorable Lord M would never take advantage of her. Instead, she kissed his rough, unshaved cheek, damp with his own tears

Victoria knew that he was the moon, passing into the twilight of his life. Soon, he would leave her, the shining sun, to rule the sky alone. Beautiful, celestial beings, they performed their dance of the moon and the sun, watching and gazing and hoping, but unable to possess each other fully. Victoria knew she was lucky to have shared the expanse of sky with him, however briefly. 

 

As her carriage trundled back to the palace, lost in her own confusion, she searched for a measure of tranquility. She focused on her wedding day, when Lord M knelt before her and kisses her hand as he always did. Victoria, however, sensed something different and first about this meeting. His pose differed slightly, he held onto her hand longer, his lips brushed her skin and lingered there. In another life, a life in which she was not Queen and he was not Prime Minister, he might have been proposing. 

Illuminated by the tapers, he looked at her with a silent intensity and depth of feeling that threatened to break her and destroy her resolve. His hand reached out for hers, tentatively, questioningly, afraid to touch the wife of another man, but she took his without hesitation. After all, her heart belonged to him first. He stood before her: handsome, greying, sadly smiling but beautifully shining in his gold braided uniform. He was the husband she could have had, if it were not for politics and nobility and chivalry. 

“May I kiss the bride?”

He smiled at her, but those piercing blue eyes betrayed his heartbreak as he leaned forward and touched his lips to her cheek. He kissed her so closely and she longed for a heavenly bower where she might kiss him back, fully. But she was Queen Victoria, and he was Lord M, and she had a real husband now, not just a phantom half-lover. Taking his hands in her own, she treasured their roughness, their strength, she thought of the way he had held her waist as they turned around the dance floor, she thought of his hands holding the reins of his horse, and of the way he held a pen. The small, intimate details she had collected over their years together but that she would soon lock away with Doll 123.

“Goodbye, Lord M.”

“Goodbye, Ma’am.”

Letting go, she turned away to flee from her old life into her new. She heard him move away, up the steps, the finality of their goodbye too much to bare, even for his broad shoulders. With her back turned, she sensed his eyes on her when he turned back to steal one last look. 

She wanted to turn back, to see him again, and share a last, poignant smile. But she could not do that to him: she must let him think that everything was well and that her heart had not forsaken her. He must think that she was happy. Forcing herself on, she hurried away even as the tears fell fast upon her wedding dress. 

_Never let him see how hard it is to bare._

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn’t get these two out of my head, so I knew it was time I write it down. There aren't many ships that can break my heart like Vicbourne, but god my heart broke for them a thousand times. This work was heavily inspired by the song "Hunter Moon", written by Kate Rusby. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed <3


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